Thursday, October 28, 2010

Creations by Erin Browne

Creations was written for Flux Theater Ensemble's Divine Reckonings as part of their build up to Jacob's House. It was directed beautifully by Michael Davis. A blue scarf for water and was it a stuffed koala that played land animals?

The night An Awesome God was a reflection on God's power reflected in Old Testament stories, and I was assigned the creation story.

While it's only a few pages long in the bible, there are a lot of opinions about it - perhaps because in those few pages it seems to present 3 complete and conflicting stories from 3 very different perspectives. This is my take on all of them.

ORCA – No one really remembers how it happened anymore. Not even the big guy. He pretends he knows, but he doesn’t.

GOD (off) – Hey

ORCA – (shaking head “no” and doing throat cutting hand signs while saying this) - Sorry, I mean he’s all knowing and all seeing and it is definitely his story to tell and therefore he remembers everything.

GOD (Off) - Thank you!

ORCA – Can I get back to it or what?

GOD (Off) – Go for it.

ORCA – Okay.

GOD – Wait.

ORCA – What?

GOD – Are you smoking?

ORCA – No.

GOD – Didn’t we discuss you smoking?

ORCA – Alright, alright.

Orca puts out cigarette.

GOD – Now go ahead.

ORCA - Thank you! So here’s his version, since someone is incredibly antsy today. We’ll start with his version.

Blackout. Absolutely nothing visible.

GOD - I am so bored.

We hear two people enter, Heaven and Earth, but cannot see them.

GOD - Hello,?

EARTH – Hello?

HEAVEN – Hello?

GOD - It that Earth?

EARTH – Yes.

HEAVEN – No.

GOD - What?

EARTH – Yes.

HEAVEN – No.

EARTH – Who’re you?

GOD – God.

HEAVEN – Heavens.

EARTH – What?

GOD – Heavens, you’re there too?

HEAVEN – Yes.

EARTH – What?

HEAVEN – Where are we?_

EARTH – Where are you?

GOD – This is ridiculous.

The lights come on.

GOD- There, that’s better. Now, this, this is good.

All shake hands in meeting

GOD – Okay now, Heavens, can you break into the sky and I’ve got two lights here, a bright one and a less bright one and that will make night and day and evening, twilight, morning, starry nights, all that.

HEAVEN – Okay, that sounds good.

EARTH – What about me?

GOD – Okay, I will divide you up here. Here’s some land. And here’s some water. And then there’s some land over water and some water over land.

God places some patches of land and water on Earth.

EARTH – I like this outfit.

GOD – Yeah, nice.

HEAVEN – That was exhausting.

EARTH – No kidding.

GOD – Let’s rest.

HEAVEN & EARTH – Okay.

They fake sleeping, the lights dim, the lights come up, they wake up.

GOD – What now?

EARTH – But we did so much yesterday.

GOD – But you’re both still missing something.

HEAVEN – I think I look pretty good actually.

GOD – Here are some beasts to fly around and in you.

Heaven holds some paper birds and moves them around.

HEAVEN – That tickles.

GOD – I like it.

EARTH – Me too! I want some.

GOD – Okay, what should we do with you?

EARTH – I don’t know.

GOD – Help me think here.

EARTH – Maybe, I don’t know. Some of those things but maybe like bigger and a little different.

GOD – Hey, I know. Let’s make some vegetation.

EARTH – What’s that?

God offers Earth a celery stick.

EARTH – Okay, I can get into that.

GOD – Yes, good work everyone.

EARTH – But I still want some of those moving around things.

GOD – Okay, how about this.

God offers Earth a teddy bear or a My Little Pony.

EARTH – Oh! I like that.

HEAVEN – Look, my thingees can land on your thingees!

EARTH – Yippee!

GOD – Okay that’s enough for today.

Again, dimmed light, sleeping, bright light, all awake.

GOD – What now?

HEAVEN – I’ve got all I need.

GOD – Okay. How about you?

EARTH – Sure, I could use something else. Like another accessory maybe, like some earrings or something.

GOD – I know, how about…..

Adam and Eve walk out.

GOD – Man and woman!

EARTH – I don’t know. I don’t know if they’ll fit.

GOD – I think so. Look they are like little versions of me that can take care of all of the plants and animals.

EARTH – I guess, things are getting a little out of control.

GOD – Here you go.

Handshakes all around.

ORCA – Where do I come in?

GOD – Oh we forgot about you.

ORCA – Typical.

GOD – Monsters of the sea in there somewhere too.

ADAM – This isn’t how I remember it at all.

GOD – Okay, you tell your version.

EVE – He always gets to tell his version.

ORCA – Everyone will have a chance.

EVE – Okay, okay.

HEAVEN – I’m tired.

EARTH – Me too.

GOD – We still haven’t gotten to the resting part.

ADAM – We will.

ORCA – Alright man. Let’s hear your version.

ADAM – Okay, so God came in and made light and darkness and all that.

GOD – That’s kind of a big deal. You could talk a little more about it.

ADAM – And heaven and earth.

GOD – Again, I don’t think you’ve ever done that. It could take up a little more space than a sentence or two.

ORCA – Let him tell his story.

GOD – I am a patient and forgiving God. I am a patient and forgiving God.

ADAM- And I was of the earth, and was given all the beasts and monsters to name because I was master of them all.

ORCA – Hey!

ADAM – You will be called Orca.

ORCA – You will be called-

ADAM – That will be called celery. And these will be called birds.

EARTH – I prefer to think of the naming as more of a group effort.

ADAM – And I will rule over all of it. It is all here for me.

EVE – He gets a little carried away.

HEAVEN – No kidding.

ADAM – But none of the monsters and beasts-

ORCA – Really with calling us monsters again. That’s not very nice.

ADAM – There was no suitable companion. So as soon as I went to sleep, God plucked one of my ribs.

God plucks a rib from Adam.

ADAM – Ouch!

GOD – What?

ADAM – You could have warned me.

GOD – Isn’t this your story? You should know how it goes.

ADAM – And made this one.

EVE – I have a name.

ADAM – And I named her Eve, the mother of all.

EVE – Thanks.

ADAM – And because she is made from me, she is cleaved to me and must obey me. All must obey me.

HEAVEN – I don’t think I like this version.

EARTH – Me either.

EVE – What about mine?

ORCA – Okay, Eve, what’s your version?

EVE – Okay, so all that beginning stuff. Really not super important to me. The things I remember were the garden. It was so beautiful and everyone was naked and vegan and we used to just hang out chatting all day and God, well God lived with us, among us. He wanted to be with his creations. He walked with us through the garden. He wasn’t like the scary God we sometimes know today.

GOD – Those were the days weren’t they?

HEAVEN – I remember that.

EARTH – Me too. Everything lived together and everyone was happy.

EVE – Well one thing wasn’t happy. This thing, the snake, well he was kind of a jerk.

ADAM – Total A-hole supreme.

EVE – But I’d always been attracted to jerky guys.

Heaven laughs. Earth laughs. Adam suddenly gets the joke.

ADAM – Hey!

EVE – And you know, he was incredibly persuasive. This snake. We were talking one day about how we ate the fruit of all but this one tree - which everyone thinks was an apple but was really a kind of fruit we don’t see that much anymore but was more akin to an olive now that I think about.

ADAM – Olives, I named them.

ORCA – Not your turn.

EVE – God had said don’t eat this, the fruit of this tree.

GOD – I did.

EVE – But first of all God had said that to Adam and not me.

EARTH – That’s kind of true.

HEAVEN – I feel so distant from all of this.

EVE – But you’re affected too, we all were. Because we were all friends. We were. But then the snake said, you can be more like God if you eat this olivey thing. He was a great debator and kind of a scholar and really convincing.

ADAM – Yeah.

EVE – And I was like, God, yeah I would definitely like to be more like God. He’s really cool. He can make incredible things like heaven here and earth and snakes and ponies and olivey things. I’d love to do all that stuff and be cool like that guy. So I thought, sure, I’ll just eat one. And the snake was right, it was really really good. And I went to Adam and I said this is really really good, you should try it.

ADAM – That’s true, that’s what she said.

EVE – And I said maybe if we eat enough we can be cool like God. That’s what the snake told me.

ADAM – Yeah, she said that too.

ORCA – I heard the snake. He did say that.

EVE – And I guess I didn’t really think about it too much. I didn’t think about all the ramifications involved. Like if God can create all of this really amazing stuff, if he can create all of us, then there must be a pretty horrible down side to his existence too.

GOD – I warned you.

ADAM – He did. But we ate anyway.

EVE – And all of a sudden after we’d both eaten we saw everything clearly for the first time.

HEAVEN – Less clear?

EVE – Maybe. I don’t know.

ADAM – There was killing and pain and sadness and acid rain and all sorts of pollution and progress and I was hungry for meat.

ORCA – Stop looking at me that way. If you come after me, I will kill you in a minute.

EVE – And that’s the way the world was, kill or be killed, all of a sudden.

ADAM – I went into a really deep depression.

EARTH – We all did.

EVE – And I just kept looking in the mirror picking apart every aspect of my body. My hips are fat, my butt is sagging, I have this birthmark and these pimples, and I just suddenly never felt beautiful anymore.

ADAM – How do you think I felt? Here I was with this hot woman who was off talking to this snake guy instead of me and he couldn’t look more different. I felt totally worthless.

HEAVEN – I cried, I felt so bad for you guys.

EVE – So we made some clothing to wear. To cover up our ugly bodies, that were still the same but suddenly looked ugly to us.

ADAM – And I couldn’t shake the depression, even in the fanciest clothes I could fashion.

EVE – And then God came by for our Friday night vegan chili dinner like usual.

ADAM – And we were like, Oh no, what the hell are we going to tell him.

GOD – Even walking over there I had this horrible feeling. Everything looked different.

ORCA – I certainly wasn’t feeling myself.

EVE – And we hid.

GOD – And then I knew.

EVE – We hid but of course, God knows a lot so he found us.

GOD – Their feet were sticking out below the curtains.

ADAM – We’d never hidden before so we weren’t very good.

GOD - I was pissed.

EARTH – I started to rumble!

HEAVEN – I shook and moaned.

ORCA – Everything was agitated and a mess.

GOD – But what could I do. I had threatened them with death but I couldn’t follow through.

EVE – But you could tell.

ADAM – Things would be different.

GOD – I looked into their faces and they were so innocent. Still so much for them to learn. They’d made a mistake but what could I do?

EVE – So we wear clothes and we eat meat and there is pain and tragedy and killing.

ADAM – We even kill each other.

EVE – God walked with us. He made us in his image, both of us equally… He walked with us and was our friend. But where we had flaws, he had none.

GOD – Flawless.

EVE - But I’m flawed, and you’re flawed.

ADAM - Hey

EVE – You are.

ADAM – Okay, I’m flawed.

EVE – We all are. That is how we are different from God. But how we are like God is that he loves us despite our flaws.

GOD – I do.

EVE – I am like God because I can love you despite your flaws too.

ADAM – And I can love you despite your flaws.

EVE – And I can love you earth and heavens and monsters of the sea, all with your flaws. We are all connected. We are all part of this story.

GOD – My story.

ORCA – Our story.

EARTH – Aw, I love all you guys.

ORCA – You decide which story you like best, or perhaps you have your own. This is just ours.

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Free Short Plays

I believe that new writing (especially short works and monologues) should be free to students, actors, and directors working in class, for festivals, for auditions, and all of the other work that you do for love and not money. So, here they are. I just ask that if you use it, you let me know - erinkellyb@hotmail.com